This review was originally posted on http://threecatsandabook.blogspot.com/Warm Bodies was my first attempt at reading a zombie book. Zombies have never really appealed to me, I don’t watch the Walking Dead and I’ve only seen two zombie movies: Dawn of the Dead and Zombieland. The first was not a voluntary viewing and I was really young and I hated it. Zombieland, on the other hand, is hilarious and I’d recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it.
But I don’t think Warm Bodies is the right book to introduce someone to zombies. Because you’re not supposed to like the zombie, right?
And I do like R. You could even say I love him as our main zombie and narrator of Warm Bodies. He is funny and honest and so likeable as a human person, not only as a zombie person. R doesn’t remember his name and has no memories of his previous life. He lives amongst his fellow zombies in an abandoned airport. Every now and then he joins his colleagues and they go hunting in a nearby city. When they finally find a group of humans, R meets Julie. For reasons unknown to him, he doesn’t eat her but instead saves her and he brings her back to the airport.
I’d like to keep this review short and simple just like the book itself. I don’t mean that in a negative way. The book is on the thin side and it contains lots of information and events without becoming overwhelming. And I really like that when looking back at my reading experience, Warm Bodies seems like a short and simple read although at the same time I’m aware that many things happen in the book. Kind of like how R experiences life I guess -Enya, you’re so deep I can’t even see you right now-.
I love the originality of this story. It just works. (Although I do hope that the ending will be explained in the rumoured sequel. The ending of Warm Bodies doesn’t really have a cliff-hanger, what has happened is just left unexplained. Which is basically the only thing I didn’t like about this book. But it does make sense, because R tells you the story and he doesn’t know what has happened, therefore he can’t tell the reader what has happened either.)
Other things I liked about this book: the parallels with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, thorough questioning of what makes someone (or something for that matter) human and Marion’s beautiful poetic writing. And for the first time at Three Cats and a Book, I will end this review with a couple of quotes from this book to show you how incredible Marion’s writing style is:
“My friend "M" says the irony of being a zombie is that everything is funny, but you can't smile, because your lips have rotted off.”
“I want to change my punctuation. I long for exclamation marks, but I'm drowning in ellipses.”
“In my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thoughts. But when I open my mouth, everything collapses.”
Warm Bodies is original, funny, filled with action-packed scenes and on top of that all, beautifully written. I can’t wait to see how this story is going to be told on the silver screen.